Electrolysis for rusty parts....

[TheCafeKid]

The 850 cylinder sleeves are thicker, so better for this. Great if your 850 cylinders are not worn, if you need to bore the cylinders I don't think Wiseco has an oversize piston. Not sure about this.




Both Wiseco and stock 850 are 89mm, 844cc or 843cc? Suzuki has 89.5 and 90 mm oversizes available, not sure about Wiseco.



850 cams are the same as a GS1000, give a little broader powerband than the 750. I am going to go with the 750 cams first, then switch them out to see which ones I like better.

Thanks for the info!! I will keep an eye out for what im lookin for. :-D

[tkent02]

More fun with rusty stuff...

This GS 550 frame is pretty rusty, mostly in the battery acid spill zone.







The hard part is finding a big enough tub. This one will have to do.



Need a good negative connection on the frame, this goes to the negative lead of the non automatic battery charger:



And a sacrificial annode (rebar) connected to the positive lead:



In it goes, the 2 amp setting is plenty. Time to go watch a football game or sand something for a while.



In a few minutes tiny bubbles begin to float around, proof it's working.
In an hour or so there is a lot of rust in the bubbles, guess where that came from?



This is an hour later, after adding another anode. The cleaning action is line of sight only, the rust only comes off from the side of the frame facing the anode. By putting another anode in the center of the frame, it is taking rust from the whole area at once. You can have as many as you want, even a whole grid of them depending on what you are cleaning. Just connect them all to the positive lead, and ensure they don't touch the part you are cleaning.

[pete]

Thanks for the pic's TKent!

I clicked on the 650rider link but it's no longer there, so your pic's are very helpful.

I think I've dealt with all my rusty bits but if I find some more then I might dig out my old charger and see if it still works with this.

[tkent02]

Here's another setup, this time cleaning the battery box from the same 550:

[raistian77]

Nice pics Kent, been using electrolysis for a long time, works perfect. Just remember to use a non-automatic charger. This works perfect for cleaning fuel tanks also.

[Nessism]

Waiting for the "after" photos...

[tkent02]

Waiting for the "after" photos...

After:



Some of the paint came off in the water, more when I was scrubbing off the frame afterward, so I spent a half hour with some paint remover and steel wool removing more of it. The frame had no primer, just one thin layer of hard black paint. Easy stuff to remove.

[49er]

Can this be used to remove ali oxide? If so, I guess you may need a different salt other than Sodium bi carbonate!

BTW, the stock bore size for the 850 is 69 mm, not 89 mm.

[tkent02]

Can this be used to remove ali oxide? If so, I guess you may need a different salt other than Sodium bi carbonate!

BTW, the stock bore size for the 850 is 69 mm, not 89 mm.

I think so, google it. This guy thinks you can clean a lot of different materials. This is from cliff's site:

http://users.eastlink.ca/~pspencer/nsaeta/electrolysis.html

There's a lot of info on the internet and some on cliff's site. The electrolyte doesn't matter, it just lets the electricity flow so it can do it's work. It's the current flow that does it. Carbonate of soda works better than bicarbonate of soda, it's less corrosive. But salt, vinegar, detergent, anything that will let the water conduct electricity will work.

I am thinking of trying an acidic electrolyte, to see if combining electrolysis with acid dipping might work better on the rust than either method alone.

I don't know what that bore size stuff is doing on an electrolysis thread, it's on there from a threadjack from last year.

[tkent02]

More info, apparently I've been doing it wrong...

http://www.rickswoodshopcreations.com/Miscellaneous/Rust_Removal.htm

[49er]

More info, apparently I've been doing it wrong...

http://www.rickswoodshopcreations.co...st_Removal.htm

What a pity. It appears that Ali is out of the equation!!

Perhaps a little more research (thinking outside the square), is in order.

Don't you just love chemistry? Could be a hazardous assignment though.

[Planecrazy]

Very impressive ... looking good, Pal!

Regards,

[pete]

Sorta makes me wanna go find rusty bits just to try it for myself...

[48woody]

A question about cleaning gas tanks. would you have to put the anode inside the tank, maybe using a rubber stopper the size of the filler hole with 2 holes in it. one for the anode, the rubber keeping it from touching the metal of the tank, and the 2nd for gases to escape. something like might be used in a HS Chemistry class. Or would the inside get cleaned with the anode outside the tank.

[tkent02]

No, the anode needs to be inside, and it should be as far back in there as you can get it, as most of the rust is in the bottom rear of the tank. I use anodes of several different shapes, one at a time into every corner of the tank it can get to. Then another anode in the petcock hole to get the back of the tank, with a piece of plywood to hold the anode in place. I do one straight forward up the left side of the tank, and then one going up and over the hump into the other side of the tank. If the tank has a gas gauge sender hole, you can use that to run another anode in that side at the same time. It takes a long time to get a whole tank truly clean.

I have a couple of tanks to do the next few days, I'll try to get some pics.